


(I don't need to) Runaway

by Remarque



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Din Djarin - Freeform, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Gen, Happy Ending, One Shot, Runaway, Song Lyrics, chapter 16, chapter 16 spoilers, half alive, soul searching, the mandalorian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remarque/pseuds/Remarque
Summary: Din Djarin is facing the reality of what's happened during that last few days and months of his life and he's not sure he can handle the weight.*Warning - major spoilers for Chapter 16: The Rescue*
Relationships: None
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	(I don't need to) Runaway

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lyric fic featuring the song Runaway by Half Alive. I HIGHLY suggest you listen to the song before reading this to try and understand the feeling of it all, but basically this just moved me so much and it felt so applicable to what Din is dealing with where we leave him in Chapter 16 it was begging to be written. Please let me know what you think below in the comments.   
> Lyrics are Italicized for clarity. 
> 
> **I do not own the lyrics/song/anything relating to "Runaway" aside from my own interludes.

Runaway | Half•alive 

_I’ve been searching, nothing's working_   
_I've been tripping, no one's perfect_   
_Chasing vision, just the surface_   
_Shirt's on backwards, not on purpose_

Din walked into a room humming in silence, finally alone. He was exhausted. The rush of feelings, of emotions - heartbreak, adrenaline, confusion everything he wasn’t used to feeling weighed so heavy on him he had to find a space to himself to just sit and process everything that had happened to him in the last day. week. month. year.   
Everything that felt like so much more than he ever imagined he could bear and yet somehow, he sat here managing it. Was he managing it? The weight of the Beskar, the weight he depended on with his life, was starting to feel heavy . 

_I've been learning, something bigger_   
_Expectations, feet were failing_   
_I found blessings flowing from_   
_The sight of Heaven_

The view he had of the empty space around him, despite the stars and planets twinkling with light seemed a little duller to him now. He chalked it up to being tired, to being emotional… to letting go of the child. His child.   
He knew it was the right thing to do, it was his plan all along. But he didn’t anticipate the ache inside his heart that would result. The pain it would cause, more searing than any blaster bolt he had ever taken. He knew the child was a gift. He knew he was where he needed to be. Din could never do for him what the Jedi could and with the churning of the galaxy he’d recently become privy to, they would need him. Din would need him. As he felt his own body fail him in small ways sometimes, he knew that despite all of his training and experience, he was nothing compared to this child. He was nobody, he was nothing. Weak and tired, a small speck in a galaxy he never had taken time to think about it being as big and mysterious as it truly was. Who was he, even. 

_Staring into my reflection_   
_Redirecting my perfection somewhere else_   
_When there isn't any progress_   
_Lean on truth inside the promise, it is well_

He pressed his helmet up against the transparisteel window that looked out into the inky blackness, taking in the T shape of his visor, hardly even recognizing himself - he had so infrequently looked at himself while in armor he didn’t even know what he looked like half the time. It nearly startled him.   
Where he had been when this had all started, where he is now. All because he was…. Was he greedy? He wanted the beskar. It belonged to him in a way after all. Was he someone that would throw his morals out the window for his history, his heritage? What was the difference? What was truly Mandalorian? He wanted to believe it was the choices he made after, and not the ones before. He was a stagnant soul. He shut himself off - out of life, out of growth of anything deeper than the training he needed to stay alive. He refused to feel because he knew how much feelings hurt - how they clawed and gnawed at your heart at night, how they choked you in dreams and how they left you vulnerable and weak.   
Or at least, he had thought.   
He had stayed half alive, anyway. Dead inside, and death around him.   
He clutched to his heart what he knew. The Creed. The way of the Mand’alore. This was the way.   
Wasn’t it? 

_I hold my life out in front of me_   
_Dreams of who I want to be_   
_I'm seeing every empty page_   
_I find that everything I am is_   
_Everything I should be_   
_I don't need to run away_

The way of the Mand’alore. He looked down to his hand, still clutching the darksaber. How was he supposed to lead people he didn’t even know the extent of their existence of. Why couldn’t that stubborn woman just take this and rid him of the responsibility. He was usually the man for the job when it came to difficult tasks. This was not one he believed he could do.   
He was not trained for this. He was trained to hunt, to incapacitate, to kill if necessary. To follow his rules. His life was written by those he thought he knew about. But as she liked to point out, he knew nothing. Was nobody and was not the person for this.   
His fist pounded at the transparent layers separating him from the vacuum of space. He wanted to be sucked into it right now. Torn apart, stretched thin, the breath sucked out of the voice he no longer had.   
But he wouldn’t let that happen. Time and time again when death came for him, he stood facing it. Every time, that higher calling had saved him. Sheer luck, the force or whatever anyone else wanted to call it, it had stepped in. How was he meant for this. All he wanted was to run away. 

_Something's working, heart is turning_   
_Vision's clear, and still I'm learning_   
_That what I am, what I am, what I am, what I am_   
_Is something more than I can plan_   
_Go, tell me now_   
_I don't need to run away_

All he wanted was to run away. He thought briefly about the escape pod on the ship, he could wait for Boba to swing back around and pick him up but the thought left him as quickly as it entered and it left him frustrated. The fatigue ached in his joints, his eyes crusted with dried tears and new ones simmering to the surface. He turned and threw the darksaber across the room. He flung the spear as well which even without planning sailed across the room and impaled itself into the wall. That was somewhat satisfying but it still didn’t release the pressure building up inside of him. He started peeling off his armor, angrily, hastily, throwing it across the room to accompany the other items that felt like they radiated responsibility he didn’t want. Pauldron, bracer, his chest plate and finally his helmet soared through the air and crashed with a metallic ring.   
Din did not have tantrums. Din did not treat his second skin with such disrespect. Din didn’t allow himself to have strong emotions. And that’s why they flooded out now. Bursting from him like the Dam on Morak when it exploded. Fears and follies and feelings escaped him as he dropped to his knees on the hard ground and screamed like he had been shot. His head hit the cold floor as sob after sob racked his body with such intensity he thought he would throw up or pass out. Every feeling from his parents death, the hardships of growing up under the creed, the loss of his covert-his family and friends, the desire for love, the loneliness, the lives he had taken, the life he had saved.   
The life that had saved him.   
They broke him into a million pieces and pooled together on the floor below him. 

_I’ve been standing on a stage, or just a mirror_   
_Forced to face who I become_   
_Searching for a new escape_   
_I scan the exits that embrace an easy out_

His mind panicked at the thought of being forced into a role he never asked for and never wanted. It added to his desperate cries on the floor of his enemy’s ship. He had tried again to give the saber to Bo-Katan. She looked at him in disgust, refusing again and leaving him standing there on the bridge like a fool. He was a fool - to think he could do all this and return to his life. What life, though. His life was gone. Like a grain of sand on Tattoine. There had to be some way to get out of this… he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. How could anyone expect him to…   
He sat up and looked at the pile of metal strewn about the room. The black T visor stared back, challenging him. His face, the face everyone knew. It looked at him as if to say “What are you doing, groveling on your hands and knees.”   
You are a Mandalorian. You look at challenge and welcome it to your table. Accept your fear, and then let it go.   
You are Din Djarin. Everything you are is everything you should be. You don’t need to run away. 

_I hold my life out in front of me_   
_Dreams of who I want to be_   
_I'm seeing every empty page_   
_I find that everything I am is_   
_Everything I should be_   
_I don't need to run away_

This was not the life he had dreamed of as a boy. It wasn’t even the life he had dreamed of as a man. He thought he would be able to figure it out as he went along but the older he became, the more he realized how much emptiness he had invited into his life, how many chapters of his life he wanted to rip out and throw into the fire. But he realized he wouldn’t be where he was without each of those pages.   
The child had changed him. He had people who helped him, who counted on him- not just his tribe. He.. felt again. He felt his burning love for the small green creature that had imprinted on his heart. He felt the need to right wrongs, to help people who needed it. It was not a feeling he was used to but despite the cold steel below him and the cold beskar staring at him he felt a warmth grow. He was able to defeat Moff Gideon. He was able to do what was right for the child. He knew how to get people to work together to overcome their differences for something bigger than themselves… Maybe he was able to help reunite Mandalore… 

He stared at his reflection in the helmet, inching towards it on his knees and holding it in his hands. He could see his tear stained face in the visor. For once he didn’t feel naked and afraid without it. But he wanted it on. He wanted the weight of everything it meant and everything it meant to him. It was him, and he didn’t need to run away. 


End file.
